Delhi HC stays publication and sale of book on Ramdev’s life

New Delhi: In a relief to yoga guru Ramdev, the Delhi High Court on Thursday issued an interim order restoring the ban on publication and sale of a book purportedly on his life, which he claimed contained defamatory content.The court stayed an order of the additional senior civil judge (ASCJ) which had removed the ban on the publication and sale of the book.“I am going to restore the order of the trial judge. You (author and publisher of book) file your reply,” Justice R K Gauba orally said referring to the initial order passed by additional civil judge (ACJ) banning the book.The high court made it clear that it would pass a detailed order in the matter later.The court granted the interim relief to Ramdev while hearing his plea challenging the order of the ASCJ which had lifted the ban on publication and selling of book titled ‘Godman To Tycoon’, allegedly based on the life of the yoga guru.During the hearing today, the counsel appearing for Ramdev said that the appellate decided to look at the case afresh and did not bother to look at the reasoning of the ACJ while restraining the publication and sale of the book.Senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, representing Ramdev, said the ASCJ vacated the ban on the ground that the book was already available in the market on account of publication and sale, but “how can this be a ground to deny injunction”.“My prayer is to stop the circulation of the book. The assumption of the appellate judge was contrary to the law,” he argued.He claimed that the allegations in the book relating to Ramdev’s life were incorrect.In August last year, the ACJ had restrained publisher Juggernaut Books from publishing and selling the book titled ‘Godman To Tycoon’ till further orders.It had also restrained Amazon India and Flipkart Internet Pvt Ltd from selling the book online and said any pending delivery of the book to buyers be stopped immediately.